In the last days, that is, end times, the apostle Paul warns us how people will change for the worse. A characteristic of such people is, they “will be lovers of themselves.” They are people who think themselves godly and Christian. The fact is: they have “a form of godliness but [are] denying its power.” Paul lists down some behaviours of such people. I urge you, as you read this article, to check yourselves against this list and descriptions. Unless you make a conscious effort to guard yourselves, you can be quite sure, you will be one of them because the influence of the world is overwhelming.

This series of articles is written by Peter Masters and is taken from the website https://metropolitantabernacle.org/articles/the-cancer-in-all-human-relationships/

Without natural affection

The next ugly feature of human relationships in an age of apostasy is that very many people to an increasing degree become without

natural affection, or unfeeling and unsympathetic. Obviously if people become dominated by self-love and feel no gratitude, and if they lose respect and loyalty to God-given family bonds, then they will become heartless people whose only affection will be toward those who currently benefit or excite them in some way. Deep and loyal love will become rare.

We see how people today behave in so many marital disputes, and particularly in their ruthless indifference to their children. We see the ever spiralling abortion statistics. Is this not an abnormally callous generation? One of the most awful fruits of atheism so widely seen in these perilous times is women who have had their natural maternal tenderness turned into a heartless, callous readiness to destroy life.

We must keep this satanic hardness of heart out of our churches, by calling for love for God, for one another, and for the lost. And such love cannot survive or grow without being exercised and expressed in acts of practical service. The church with no great outreach efforts, soon becomes a community for self-love where people are only concerned about their own hurts, and only cry about their own difficulties. A baneful procession of supposedly Christian psychological writers make their money stoking the fires of self-concern, but we are to reject these ungodly trends, and do all we can to encourage instead the unselfish, outgoing, loving Christianity of Christ. Why should the world shape the church?

The apostle goes on to speak of trucebreakers – disagreeable, unreliable people who will not enter into or keep faith with settlements of disputes. You cannot negotiate with them or trust them. They are irreconcilable. Paul mentions false accusers, or slanderers and gossips. He mentions those who are incontinent or without self-control, including fierce or violent people. He refers to people who despise the well-behaved, viewing them with contempt. He speaks of traitors or betrayers, and spitefulness is certainly common in today’s atheistic society. Paul also lists the heady, or headstrong and overconfident; the highminded, meaning literally enveloped in smoke (or conceit); and those who are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.

All these traits take over in a perilous time, ruling secular society and also ruling the world of nominal religion. (For this reason alone ecumenism is a disaster for true churches.) The apostle therefore warns about people – ‘having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.’ Our confidence is that God gives more grace, according to our need, and he will preserve and keep his vigilant people.

The apostle’s prophetic analysis of perilous times has proved harrowingly accurate, and serves as a powerful vindication of the inspired accuracy of revelation. Nothing is happening which we have not been told to expect, because all is known to our God. The world does not understand itself, but we understand it, and why it desperately needs the saving message of Christ.